Max Lifchitz: A Transmodern Composer in American Music?

Abstract

Abstract Latin American and Latinx composers continue to contribute to music by bringing a subtle universe of sounds shaped by their agency and cultural history. Composer Max Lifchitz (b. 1948) bridges his artistic output with entrepreneurship and pedagogy. Since migrating from Mexico to the United States, Lifchitz has constructed a multifaceted persona as a cultural broker. As a composer, Lifchitz's self-defined eclecticism forms the basis of his musical voice, which reconciles opposites and flows between contrasting compositional aesthetics, cultures, and techniques. In 1980, he created the North/South Consonance organization, which has been an open and anti-canonical space for composers from different aesthetics, traditions, and ethnic and gender identities to share their works with new music audiences. In Lifchitz's role as a pedagogue, he positions music as a pluriversal tool to generate epistemological equity and inclusion and a more intercultural educational experience. Despite his contributions to contemporary Western art music, his impact on new music has not yet been studied. Therefore, the article's purpose is to examine Lifchitz's extensive and complex contributions from a transmodern theoretical perspective as postulated by philosopher Enrique Dussel (b. 1934) to demonstrate how the composer's music and persona represent qualities of this philosophical theory and promote the redefinition of art music and the musician's role in the twenty-first century.